Not Losing Weight In A Calorie Deficit (Here's Why!)

If you feel like no matter how low you take your calories in a calorie deficit, how much cardio you do, or how many salads you eat, you still can't seem to lose weight, then this video is for you because I'm going to give you the 4 things that you need to fix in order to start losing weight. The first thing to fix is how many calories you are actually eating and what most people do when they step into a calorie deficit trying to lose weight They will eat as little calories as possible to try to lose weight as quickly as possible. And here's why we can talk about the 1,200 calories and why this backfires most of the time. And despite what you may have heard before, it's not because of something called starvation mode. That is not a real thing. But what does happen is this: you might be eating 1,200 calories Monday through Thursday because you're like, all right, I'm on a diet. It's time for me to lose weight. I'm going to eat super clean. I'm going to eat super healthy. On top of the fact that I know you want to see progress yesterday, so you try to eat as little calories as possible and you might do it for a couple of days, but then something happens because I know this. I've actually coached people in real life and you know this because it probably happens to you almost every single week or every single month when Friday to Sunday rolls around because you have over-restricted yourself during the week. You tell yourself you're not allowed to have foods you enjoy. You know, you over-restrict what foods you eat, how many calories you eat. You get to the weekend and you are starving. You are incredibly hungry and you feel deprived. You feel restricted. So this is your time to have fun. This is your time to cheat. This is your time to let loose. And when this happens, you are not eating 1,200 calories. These 3 days, what's probably happening is you're eating 3,000+ calories on these 3 days. Then losing body fat comes down to being in an overall weekly calorie deficit. So even if you are eating super clean and low calorie during the week, if you're not doing that on the weekend, you get to the end of this week your weekly calorie average is not 1,200 calories. What your weekly calorie average ends up being is probably somewhere around 2,000 calories per day, because if you take this and factor that into the week, you end up eating more calories over the course of the week. Now, if instead, let's say you ate 1,600 calories per per day instead from the start. This way— that was a good catch— by the time the weekend rolls around, you are not feeling this like sense of deprived, sense of restriction, sense of like just overall physical hunger and starvation that you would feel if you're eating 1,200 calories per day. So by the time— I didn't catch that one. By the time the week actually ends up, if you ate 1,600 calories per day, Versus if you tried to eat 1,200 calories per day but didn't actually do that because you can't stick with it, so you'd end up eating 3,000 calories per day, you would actually eat less calories throughout the course of the week if you just ate more calories on a daily basis. Does that make sense? Which would then allow you to be eating less calories in a calorie deficit. So just make sure the calorie number that you pick isn't too restrictive so you can actually stick with it. And if you need to know what your calorie deficit number is, in the description of this video there will be a free calorie calculator that you can use after this video to know what your calories per day should be. But with that being said, let's go into the second most important part of this because even if you get your calories right, if you get the second one wrong, it doesn't matter how many calories you eat. The second one is going to be how to count your calories correctly. I just said It doesn't matter what your calorie goal is. If you're not accurately tracking your calories, then you won't even know if you're hitting the number that you're supposed to be hitting. So you could use that free calorie calculator and get the number, but if you're not tracking correctly, it won't matter. And to make sure you're accurately tracking your calories correctly, you are going to be using a food scale and you are going to be weighing your food on this food scale in grams to track how many calories you are consuming. Not cups. I have them in my pocket right here. You're not going to be using cups or tablespoons or ounces. And you might ask me, Eric, why not? When you're weighing the weight of a food, it's— grams is a unit of measurement of weight. Cups, tablespoons, ounces, that is a unit of measurement of volume. We are trying to weigh your food. So you want to be weighing your food in grams. If it's a liquid, you can use either ounces or milliliters. Either one of those two is fine, but weighing your food and then not just using your MyFitnessPal on your phone, scanning the barcode of a food and saying, oh yeah, I'm tracking my calories. No, you're not, because you need to make sure you're consuming the proper portion size and actually weighing out what it is you need. To make sure you're eating the actual amount of calories that you think you are, because nothing is more frustrating like thinking you're eating 1,700 calories and not losing weight, when in reality you're not using a food scale, so you have no clue how many calories you're eating. You might be eating 2,500 calories. You don't know because we're not weighing our food. And again, on my channel, I have an in-depth video on how to count your calories correctly. I'll put it in the description of the video, but this is Super important. If you don't get this right, you will not be able to see progress. Much like point number 3, if you don't get that right either, you won't see progress. And that is going to be thinking that because you're eating healthy that you should be losing weight. I'm saying this with love because we have coached thousands, tens of thousands of people online who have came to us and said, but Eric, I eat healthy. I don't know why I'm not losing weight. Just because you're eating healthy does not mean you are in a calorie deficit. Can it help you if you're eating salads or healthy foods? For sure. But losing weight does not come down to you eating healthy. It comes down to you eating a certain amount of calories to make sure you're in the calorie deficit to lose weight. You can't just bank on eating healthy because for example, some of these healthy foods have calories and they have a lot of calories. For example, Avocado, very healthy fiber, micronutrients, potassium, everything in there. That's great. This avocado is anywhere between, let's say, 250 to potentially 300 calories for an avocado, which isn't bad, but it's still a lot of calories. Or for example, almonds. Yes, that is a healthy food, healthy dietary fat, all the great micronutrients, but it's still calories. So you cannot bank on, Eric, I'm eating healthy, but I'm not losing weight. I do not care how healthy you're eating. I do, but I don't because you could eat nothing but McDonald's and as long as you're in a calorie deficit, you will lose weight. Vice versa, you could eat nothing but almonds and avocados and eggs and salads and chicken and ground beef, whatever. If you're not in a calorie deficit, you won't lose weight. So you have to throw out, like, don't ever say it again. I'm going to break this board. Seriously though, don't ever say it again. I'm eating healthy but not losing weight. Eric, I eat relatively healthy. Eric, I don't eat out that much. I don't care. Where are your calories? Because that is what matters. And this is even more of the fact that you don't have to cut out your favorite foods in order to lose weight. For example, every single night I have 3 to 5 of these Thin Mint Oreos, which by the way, best Oreo flavor ever. And if you comment something like, oh, they taste— why would you want your Oreos to taste Tastes like toothpaste or whatever you guys say. Screw off! These are the best flavors, and you can't tell me otherwise. But I have this every single night, and you can have the foods that you enjoy as well, as long as it's within your overall calories for the day, and you're still going to lose weight. This can actually go back to the first point that we made earlier. Most people try to cut out all of their favorite foods and over-restrict themselves, which is why they end up binging on these foods later on. If you just understand. You don't have to only eat healthy or only eat clean. Eat the foods that you like within your calories. You'll stay more consistent and you will lose weight. I promise. And full transparency, the last point, point number 4, is something most people struggle with, which is trying to exercise your way to a calorie deficit. When most people think about exercising for weight loss, I'm sure you're thinking about those high-intensity bootcamp classes. I'm sure you're thinking about doing cardio, making sure you get your heart rate up and just like absolutely exhausting yourself in your workouts. If that's what you enjoy doing, that's one thing, but you are never going to be able to out-exercise a bad diet, and you're never going to be able to exercise your way to— and cardio and boot camp and HIIT workout your way to fat loss. And here's why. This is a very caveman-style drawing of how your body burns calories in a day. 70% of your daily calorie burn comes from something called your BMR, which just means like how many calories your body burns if you laid in bed all day and did nothing. Your body still has to burn calories to keep you alive. 70% of your daily calorie burn comes from that. The next 15-ish percent comes from something called your NEAT, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This just means like all of the walking that you do, like walking up and down the stairs to the fridge, walking into work, And all of the extraneous movement that you do, like I'm doing these weird things with my hands right now, that is considered NEAT. It's all the exercise and movement you do that is not a dedicated workout. So that takes up 15%. Roughly 10% takes up your TEF, which means your thermic effect of food, which means how many calories your body burns digesting the food you eat. And then last but not least, Comes your exercise. Your exercise takes up maybe 5 to 10% of your daily calorie burn for that day. And so if you're trying to use the smallest portion of calorie burn to get to your calorie deficit, it's never going to work. And that's why we often encourage the clients that we work with and coach, your exercise should be about building muscle, getting stronger, making you feel better, uh, you know, having healthier bones, preventing injuries, boosting your metabolism, all those great things. It should not be about weight loss. On top of the fact, the calorie burn that your watch or Garmin or whatever, you know, Apple Watch says that you burn during that workout, they've been shown to be up to 40 to 50% inaccurate. So if your Apple Watch says you burned 500 calories during that workout, you maybe burned 250, which is also why you think you're burning more calories than you actually are. So then that is causing you to then go and eat more food or not be as strict on your diet or whatever the case may be. Also a reason why you shouldn't eat back the calories you burn from exercise. So if it says you burned 500 calories, don't go eat 500 calories back because you didn't actually burn that many calories. Let your nutrition take care of your weight loss. I really hope this video helped you. And if you want a free 25-day fat loss program from me, click the link in the description of this video. I will send you one actionable tip you can do every single day. Hope it helped, and I'll see you next video.